


White Flag

by LaMadeleine



Category: RuPaul's Drag Race RPF
Genre: Alternative Universe - Coffee Shop, F/F, Violet is not smooth, it might rain permanently, neither is Pearl, the ex-songfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 09:51:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15861243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaMadeleine/pseuds/LaMadeleine
Summary: Violet works every shift she can get at the coffee shop, each morning a battle with her temper as customers demand coffee before their board meetings and 9 to 5s. The only thing that brings her the slightest relief is the sight of one persistently late stranger charging down the street just after the morning rush.





	White Flag

Violet hated teamwork. She hated the sudden need for her to be responsible for other people’s messes, especially when the line being held up is everyone’s problem apparently. Even when Violet was prompt taking and filling her orders she still got shit for the others. Trainees were hell, it was decided. At best she could survive the experience, reign herself in until they knew enough as to agitate her less.   
  
Not today though: one of the new girls - very pretty - had grabbed the steaming wand at just the wrong time for reasons Violet didn’t understand and now  _ she _ had to make up time while the other girl wrapped her hand. Violet caved quickly when Valentina asked her to make the drinks for her, leaving her to take orders and Violet free of human interaction for the rest of the morning rush. It was easier that way: Violet couldn’t kill any businessmen if all she had to do was hand over their drink and make the next one.    
  
Even the corporate office-types couldn’t be cruel to Valentina’s smile. Violet was only a little bitter.   
  
She wiped her hands off as she reached for the next cup -  _ bless black coffee drinkers _ , she sighed in relief, pressing the grounds with a little extra force and turning to prep the next cup while it filtered through.   
  
It went on for the longest half hour of Violet’s life, or it would be if it didn’t happen five days a week.    
  
The moment it died down, Violet slumped against the counter, staring out onto the street. She lifted her shoulders slowly, rolling them to ease the ache settling in her back, her hands coming to check her hair in the faint reflection of the shop window.   
Out on the street, a woman was charging down the pavement, face stormy and blonde hair whipping around her face.   
_ Office worker _ , Violet noted, taking in her bag and suit, even with the pleather biker jacket breaking the image it was obvious the woman worked in one of the new offices down the street. Violet watched her go, something burning in her eyes at the sight of so much momentum when she was stuck behind a counter, scribbling designs in her free time and between customers.   
“Violet, tables!” Her boss appeared behind her, stern as ever whenever she bothered to pass through. When Violet turned back to the window, the woman was gone.   
  
**   
  
She saw her again, although only a few times a week, always charging down the pavement with that look on her face. It was only on Friday closing that Violet realised that she shouldn’t have envied the woman’s momentum.   
  
She had been wiping down the tables ready to shut up shop when she saw her across the street, propped against a lamp post as she tugged her hair back into the messy bun it had fallen out of. Her makeup had worn off slightly, or maybe it was just that her bags were too deep to be covered by concealer.   
Violet watched her stranger light a cigarette and take the first slow drag, the relief in her face clear as she exhaled slowly. Then she picked up her bag again and sauntered off down the road and out of view. Violet began to wonder if she had just seen her real face for the first time.   
  
**   
  
Violet was fuming. Two of her shift had called in sick and she was stuck racing around taking orders while also being miraculously expected to produce others. Even Valentina’s smile wasn’t passing as genuine today. The mad scramble persisted for a full extra ten minutes before it died down just a little and Violet could clutch at the counter and tried desperately not to think about the state of her appearance. She could feel the itch of her hair against her cheek that should have been firmly in her ponytail.   
  
And then she heard her.   
  
“One black coffee, please.” Violet almost choked on her tongue. There, across the counter was her stranger, her hair artfully arranged round her face in soft waves, her eyes impossibly blue.   
Violet swallowed thickly, jabbing at the screen, it was as she read her the total that she realised that she hadn’t taken her name at all, or maybe she had. All she knew was that she hadn’t a clue what it was, but the woman had precise liner accentuating her eyes and a blouse that stretched across her chest, freckles obvious where her collar opened. She was screwed.   
  
The moment the woman had paid Valentina was at her elbow, pushing a cup marked “Liaison” into her hand and nudging her away from the till.   
_ Black coffee _ , Violet raised her eyebrows,  _ small mercies, I guess. _   
The rhythm of coffee-making soothed Violet’s frazzled nerves slightly; the clink of the sit-in mugs that Blair was preparing and the hum of the machine familiar to her as she dreamed up days where she hadn’t  immediately been distracted when face-to-face with her stranger. Violet only realised the favour Valentina had done her as she watched the other girl smiling at customers like it wasn’t 8:30 in the morning and noisy as hell in the shop.   
She eased the lid onto the cup, slipping it into a sleeve before placing it on the counter.   
“Liaison!”   
Violet hoped she wouldn’t have to call twice, her eyes already on the queue.   
  
And she didn’t. A manicured hand grazed hers as it wrapped around the cup.   
  
_ Oh _ .   
  
Violet was lost all over again, meeting the woman’s eyes and hoping her panic wasn’t showing on her face. The stranger smiled back sleepily, a soft thank you mouthed across the counter before she swivelled towards the exit.   
  
Violet was already back at the machine when she heard a quiet moan from near the door. Almost everyone turned to look, Violet and Valentina leaning up and over the counter to get a look at Liaison stood right by the door with her hands up.   
“Sorry, sorry, just- erm, real good coffee.” Violet had to suppress a cackle as the woman vanished out the doorway, the smile lingering in the corners of her eyes for the rest of the morning.   
  
*   
  
The cup shattered on the floor, little pieces of coffee-stained china flying everywhere. Violet could have cried. Her body ached from the balls of her feet to the top of her head and this wasn’t helping.  _ This _ being the cup that had slipped from her fingers at the end of the lunch rush and the bite in the ass of a shitty day. She swiped her cloth off the table she had been clearing and took the dustpan and brush Valentina offered her wordlessly, ignoring the worried smile twitching on her face.    
  
The day had been building to something, the rain pouring outside and the crackle of a thunderstorm in the air. The shop was charged in the same way, everything a rush and waiting for that crash of thunder. Or a cup, as it turned out.   
Violet could barely keep her head from her hands, muscles groaning with every move. The ball forming in her gut, questionably just stress, or possibly a day spent curled up in her bathroom - Violet could only hope for the former. It helped nothing that the customers were somehow worse today; a balding but trying to hide it man had shouted at Blair for the wait - the  _ short _ wait - and Violet had to politely fend off multiple assholes before the first hour was even over. Blair had managed not to cry but Violet hadn’t missed the sudden glaze over her eyes, and Valentina had managed not to crack and drown someone in coffee creamer, but Violet knew they were all one incident away from a full meltdown and her with them.   
  
The quiet ‘plink’ of the shards as she dropped them into a bowl and the pattering of rain against the windows were the only sounds as Valentina and Blair settled against the counter, waiting for the clock to strike five and the final hurdle to pull into view.   
And it did. One exhausted office worker at a time, the evening rush piled in and Violet made a mental note to get something nice for Valentina’s birthday as the other woman pushed her towards the coffee machine with the first order of the hour. There were fewer bodies this way.   
  
They made it through the first half hour without any real incident until Violet reached across Blair for something, exactly what it was that she needed was wiped clean out of her mind as the steaming wand vented on her forearm.    
  
Blair stared wide-eyed as Violet bit down on her lip  _ hard _ to keep the array of fun swear words from pouring out as she clutched her arm to her chest.   
Blair’s hands hung in mid-air, half-extended towards Violet like she was dealing with a startled animal.   
“Are you okay?”   
Violet promptly shook her head, finished off the order she was on, passing it to the greying business woman who was eying her with something mixed with disdain.   
“I’m going to the bathroom,” she whispered to Blair as she tore towards the back door, arm still held firmly to her chest. The others could hold down the fort for a few minutes, she thought, her eyes prickling.   
  
Violet slumped onto a chair in the back room, sniffing quietly as she tried to dab the few runaway tears without spreading mascara across her whole face. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she looked down at her arm, taking in the strip of red skin that ran across it. It hadn’t blistered yet, which Violet imagined was a good sign, although it didn’t mean the stinging was any better. With her arm cradled by her uninjured one, Violet wobbled over to the sink and cranked up the cold tap.    
She shoved her arm under the stream of water and groped blindly through the under sink cupboard for the first aid kit, throat tight and breathing shallow.   
  
Eventually, her arm went pleasantly numb and she was able to prop it on her knee while she pulled the first aid kit out from where it had been hiding at the back of the cupboard.    
  
As she put the kit up on the sink and lay her arm next to it, she eyed the mark along her inner forearm; the burn was still an ugly red but Violet took some comfort in not feeling it as she wiped antiseptic cream over it, wrinkling her nose at the smell.   
Her face itched and she wriggled her cheeks to try and stop it, both of her hands still occupied with applying a bandage over the burn. It was only after the itch had reached her jaw and the bandage had been wrestled on that Violet rubbed at her cheek. Her hand came away wet.   
Confused, she pushed herself up off the basin and caught sight of herself in the mirror. There were tear tracks running down both of her cheeks and the corners of her eyes were still shining.   
“Fuck.” Violet hung her head, watching as the next set of tears dripped from her nose into the sink.   
She stood there, held up by the sink until her breathing ceased to shake.   
  
Gingerly pushing her hair out of her face, she grabbed a wipe from her bag and scrubbed what remained of her makeup before heading back onto the shop floor.   
  
Blair and Valentina watched her as much as they could while still juggling customers, both wise enough not to question Violet’s makeup or her red eyes. Blair still had that look though, the one that told Violet she was one second from wrapping her in a hug; Violet made sure to keep moving until the last customer was out of the way, even after the office workers had all braved the rain in search of their evening trains.   
  
Ignoring the pull of the bandage as she moved, Violet flipped the chairs up onto the empty tables, the other girls’ murmuring blending with the building storm outside. As she tried to lift the next chair, the bottom strip of the bandage popped clean off the skin of her inner arm. She dropped the chair and hissed, the tape pulling at the tender skin.   
_ Fuck, shit. _ Violet slapped a hand over the loose tape and immediately regretted all the life choices that led her to this moment.   
“Violet.” Valentina’s hand hovered just over her own, a small frown on her face as she lay delicate fingertips on Violet’s arm. Violet moved away from her touch, holding her arm as she smoothed the tape back onto the skin absently.   
“I’m okay, Tina.”   
Valentina was staring at her pointedly,   
“If you say so, Vi, if you say so.”   
  
Violet reached for the chair again, fingers twisted around the leg, when Valentina pushed down on the back of the chair, pinning it to the floor.   
“Nope.”   
“ _ Tina _ .”   
“No, Vi, your arm. You don’t need to be lifting things when it already hurts you.”   
Violet glared at her, still holding the chair. “Me and Blair can finish up, there’s not much left to do.” Violet opened her mouth to protest. “You need rest- We all do, but not all of us have burns, so you...”    
Taking Violet by her shoulders,  Valentina steered her towards the back room, “You, Vi, can go home. I can close up and Blair has the cleaning of the machine sorted,” calling over her shoulder to where Blair stood at the counter, twiddling with the coffee machine, “Don’t you, Blair?”   
The tiny blonde popped her head over the counter .   
“Yep! We’re all good!” She chirped.   
“See?”   
  
Violet couldn’t argue with Valentina, especially not with the renewed sting of her arm. Still, she bit at her lip as Valentina watched her expectantly.   
“Fine.”   
Valentina gave a little cheer and squeezed Violet by her shoulders before sashaying off to finished stacking the chairs onto their tables. Violet rolled her eyes -  _ Okay, maybe they aren’t so bad _ \- before backing into the back room, catching Valentina’s shooing motion before the door swung shut.   
  
  
  
With her bag slung over one shoulder, Violet grabbed her jacket and umbrella and wandered back into the shop, tugging the sleeve of her jacket over her uninjured arm. She watched as the other girls danced between tables to the tinny sound of one of their phone’s speakers, cleaning gear in hand. Dropping her bag onto the counter to free her arm, Violet asked,   
“You sure you girls will be okay?”   
Both of them turned to answer, reassurances on their lips when they spotted her trying to fight her arm, bandage and all, into her jacket. Valentina was at her side in an instant, huffing as she held Violet’s arm delicately with one hand and pulled the sleeve off again with the other.   
“Don’t be silly, you can’t go squeezing your arm in there like that.” She chided, arranging the jacket firmly over Violet’s shoulder instead. “There. It’s not that cold outside anyway.”   
Violet sighed, accepting Valentina’s gentle mothering without protest. When Valentina stepped back from her, eying her handiwork, Violet caught Blair’s eyes, taking the sweet smile the other girl offered her from where she stood leaning on her broom.   
“Now, you,” Valentina started, checking the edges of Violet’s jacket with quick pulls, “You get that arm looked at, okay?”   
Violet nodded slightly, grabbing her bag before swinging towards the door.   
  
Her hip propped on the door as she opened her umbrella, Violet leaned back into the shop.   
“Are you—”   
“Sure?” Valentina smiled at her, sickly sweet with fierce intention. Violet laughed, backing into the rainy street.   
  
  
She trudged down the pavement, navigating the growing puddles on the way to the train station; the streetlights beginning to glow as the dark clouds met the growing evening. Valentina hadn’t been wrong, Violet noted, even as the rain came down in droves the air wasn’t unpleasant. The rain spattered against her legs, the chill barely registering as she came alongside the low wall that bordered the park.   
  
Something flashed in the corner of her vision, stopping her in her tracks.   
  
The park seemed empty: the grass drowned in rainwater and puddles forming lakes in the wood chip of the playground, the swings collecting water in their seats. Everything split between the silver of the rain shining on their surfaces and the orange glow of the streetlights. Violet stood in the shadow of her umbrella, shuffling her feet as the rain settled into her calves and feet, staring into the silver-painted greens of the park in search of whatever had moved before.   
  
And there she was.    
  
Out in the rain, no umbrella or coat in sight, was the woman, Violet’s own perfect, exhausted, coffee-loving stranger, her headphones on and her hair plastered to her face, her suit soaked through. She didn’t seem to care about any of that as she spun in circles, her wet hair flicking droplets into the pouring rain. She just kept on spinning, springing from foot to foot, having to catch herself on the nearest bench or post when she lost her balance. Her lips moved to the lyrics of her silent song, a wide smile on her face despite the rain.   
Violet watched as, each time she stumbled, she pushed herself back up and spun away, throwing her head from side to side, then, spinning slowly, would throw her head back to greet the elements, her breathing heavy with each movement, but so incredibly free.   
  
Violet realised in that moment how much younger the woman was than her pressed — and now soaked — suit made her seem. She watched her dance, and each time the woman threw her head back in that laugh, smothered by the sound of the rain, Violet found her own smile matching it, a quiet elation growing in her throat at the sight.   
  
It was the bow at the neck of her blouse that gave her away, now that the rain has painted her pale hair dark and flat, her face disguised at such a distance. A mink satin bow, drooping over that waistcoat still fitted to her body, the very same that Violet had watched her stranger struggle to tie that morning as she’d hurried past the shop.   
  
She was something to behold, she always was, even when she was flustered and marching with a ferocious sort of purpose to work in the mornings. And now, spinning in the rain, she glistened - a pale pearl in water.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm back! This one is vaguely prologue-y but it had to start somewhere. I'll update tags and warnings if/when they get somewhere. 
> 
> The end sequence (Pearl and the park) was roughly inspired by Joseph - White Flag if any wants to give it a listen.
> 
> If you need to find me: https://togatenine.tumblr.com


End file.
